Code for Ireland Launch Event

srsly78 · 23-01-2014 7:33pm

If they need developers so badly, why aren't they hiring any? Instead they hire loads of hr goons and manglers. No doubt these get paid loads of organise initiatives like "code for Ireland".

http://www.publicjobs.ie/publicjobs/jobsearch.htm

Meanwhile the rest of us go to work in the UK right?

ChRoMe · 23-01-2014 7:34pm

srsly78 wrote: »

If they need developers so badly, why aren't they hiring any? Instead they hire loads of hr goons and manglers. No doubt these get paid loads of organise initiatives like "code for Ireland".

http://www.publicjobs.ie/publicjobs/jobsearch.htm

Well they dont "need" in the sense that code for Ireland is not looking to replace/augment mission critical services. This is more about improving the public's experience of using public services, making it slightly less painful for the man on the street to do what he needs to when interacting with these agencies.

One of the developers there that night was a lovely guy who I got on with. His motivation for joining the queueing application group was his Brazilian girlfriend has to spend over 8 hours a day queuing for an ID and can then be told that after the 8 hours it wont happen. He experienced first hand a problem the public has of interacting with a public agency and with a bit of development was confident he could make it a better experience.

srsly78 · 23-01-2014 7:36pm

How much is this project coordinator getting paid? Is he a volunteer as well? What position does he hold?

ChRoMe · 23-01-2014 7:37pm

srsly78 wrote: »

How much is this project coordinator getting paid? Is he a volunteer as well? What position does he hold?

Everyone is a volunteer. One of the code for Ireland founders is a civil servant for Fingal council in IT who belives that pushing government for an open data policy will provide benefits for all, I agree with him.

srsly78 · 23-01-2014 7:39pm

So is he taking holidays from work or...? I bet there are expenses to be had!

Sorry I find it hard to overcome my cynicism

ChRoMe · 23-01-2014 7:40pm

srsly78 wrote: »

So is he taking holidays from work or...? I bet there are expenses to be had!

Sorry I find it hard to overcome my cynicism

The events are not during business hours for obvious reasons.

Try again

Sparks · 23-01-2014 7:44pm

ChRoMe wrote: »

Well, if you agree in principle with charities doing what should be done by the state

Stall that digger, that's not what I agree with - I agree that that is what is happening, not that it's what should be happening.

And I think that's entirely orthogonal to the concerns some people have...

The "cheap seats" comment is merely a turn of phrase, it was not implying (or at least I didn't intend to) anything of the sort of people's views requiring validation by their own volunteer work or similar.

Understood, but this whole topic seems to hover round the argument that if someone was ethical and civic-minded, they'd be queuing up around to block to do this kind of thing and that any question or cynicism is just unethical begrudgery!

Sparks · 23-01-2014 7:51pm

ChRoMe wrote: »

One of the developers there that night was a lovely guy who I got on with. His motivation for joining the queueing application group was his Brazilian girlfriend has to spend over 8 hours a day queuing for an ID and can then be told that after the 8 hours it wont happen. He experienced first hand a problem the public has of interacting with a public agency and with a bit of development was confident he could make it a better experience.

Yeah, but are you solving the right problem? 8 hours queuing doesn't sound like you need a queuing app, it sounds like the department needs to use an appointment based system instead of a queue based system (and probably to hire more people to handle the workload). Why aren't the department making that change?

This is a bit of a corollary to the issue, I know, but if you had to pay for this app to be done, instead of it being free, the bean counters would actually be looking at which solution was cheaper (and if the department's not interested in making things easier on the customers, then no app in the world is going to fix things for people).

ChRoMe · 23-01-2014 7:57pm

Sparks wrote: »

Stall that digger, that's not what I agree with - I agree that that is what is happening, not that it's what should be happening.

And I think that's entirely orthogonal to the concerns some people have...

Understood, but this whole topic seems to hover round the argument that if someone was ethical and civic-minded, they'd be queuing up around to block to do this kind of thing and that any question or cynicism is just unethical begrudgery!

Sorry I worded that badly I know that's not what you agree with, will edit that post.

I think we are slightly missing each other's point in this respect. It is of no consequence to me if someone chooses to participate in the code for Ireland project, I wouldnt think lower of anyone who decides this is not how they wish to spend their (very valuable!) free time. In an attempt to condense how I'm viewing the situation I'll put it like this:

Yes, it should not be up to citizens to provide these services.

Yes, there is a valid argument that the free provision of developer labour in this context is helping a decrepit,corrupt and dysfunctional public sector.

I personally have taken the view that if a few hours of my week can help a fellow citizen have to deal with less of the standard complete bull**** one is made endure while engaging with state services, I'm willing to make that sacrifice.

Its unfortunate that a side effect of that generosity is that I'm also giving people who don't deserve any breaks a bit of a boost , but I still evaluate the proposition of having a net positive impact on Ireland as a whole. I also believe that if code of Ireland can act as a catalyst for an open data movement in Irish government, maybe, one day, with a bit of luck we will have enough data to start being able to call out the complete hypocrisy and corruption a little bit easier. Its a marathon not a sprint.

ChRoMe · 23-01-2014 8:00pm

Sparks wrote: »

Yeah, but are you solving the right problem? 8 hours queuing doesn't sound like you need a queuing app, it sounds like the department needs to use an appointment based system instead of a queue based system (and probably to hire more people to handle the workload). Why aren't the department making that change?

This is a bit of a corollary to the issue, I know, but if you had to pay for this app to be done, instead of it being free, the bean counters would actually be looking at which solution was cheaper (and if the department's not interested in making things easier on the customers, then no app in the world is going to fix things for people).

Very good points, all of which I and others have raised and were discussed on the night. We all agreed that we should be looking to get statistics for service utilisation to see if in fact another solution will add more value. We are not blindly marching to some state agency tune here.

The room that I was in was about 15 people (mostly developers) discussing what we could possibly do to make things better. It was also discussed that maybe the queuing application is just a bad idea, there are off the shelf solutions that could provide the functionality and maybe its worth considering other areas where we can reduce friction between the public and the state.

"and if the department's not interested in making things easier on the customers, then no app in the world is going to fix things for people)."

I make a distinction between a department's middle management and actually the front line workers who I generally believe do want to make things better. Unfortunately they don't have the power to do so, this was one of the reasons that I specified that rather than talking to management as suggested by code of Ireland. We would in fact talk to the people manning the counters, perhaps we have it all wrong. No one will know better how to improve things then the poor ****er who actually sits on the other side of the desk from the public.

Zipppy · 23-01-2014 9:05pm

srsly78 wrote: »

How much is this project coordinator getting paid? Is he a volunteer as well? What position does he hold?

srsly78 wrote: »

So is he taking holidays from work or...? I bet there are expenses to be had!

Sorry I find it hard to overcome my cynicism

No one gets paid..everyone is a volunteer..no expenses or time off is given to public servants..
Government. (local or otherwise) is not organising this initiative...but like it or not government involvement is needed both for open data and input to public services...
It just so happens that, luckily, some public servants are committed to being involved, in their own time, and hoping to do some good...
Irish people are too cynical of anything new...very few public servants will ever appear before a PAC, most just want to do a good days work serving the public...the majority are also in need of improved public services just like every one else...and some are willing to try make a difference..

jmcc · 24-01-2014 8:02pm

Zipppy wrote: »

I would hope that people would be civic minded enough to assist out....

There's being civic minded and there's being taken advantage of.

With these events, you are always going to get the natural joiners but you will rarely get any top-end, highly motivated coders unless they see something in it for themselves. This is simply because to get to be a top-end coder, one develops a healthy cynicism for these events and the happy-clappies (non-coders) who attend. Thus you have a bunch of people of varying coding abilities standing around whiteboards trying to brainstorm about what should be done instead of any leadership. Most coders tend to operate on a problem-solution basis. They see a problem, come up with a solution. That's a world away from the happy-clappy approach of everyone having an equal say etc.

You want solutions? Then give people the data they want and GTF out of the way. But then that's how really useful things can be created but there's no room for happy-clappies in that universe and no press releases for technology churnos about social "entrepreneurs". It allows people (coders) to fix problems that they want to work on and get help where necessary.

Regards...jmcc

stevenmu · 25-01-2014 2:00am

Sparks wrote: »

I think we both take that principle as a given.

Whether or not professionals should step into the gap and in effect pay for the shortcoming, that's a whole other question. I don't see the building industry just going out there and fixing the infrastructure pro bono for the sake of the community, to reuse an example.

And this isn't charity work either, lets be clear on that. This isn't me arguing that soup kitchens shouldn't happen because Libertarianism.

I'm just saying, this is Ireland and we have a long history of taking the piss, and maybe we need to be a tad more cynical about this kind of thing, and not just because of where the the last few days in the public accounts committee have put the spotlight.

Yeah, I definitely see your point. I still don't think that this is quite what you are concerned that it might be, but you do have a point that it could turn into that.

And I agree that it's not charity, I think of it as closer to being neighbourly, but maybe on a slightly wider scale.

Personally I'm planning to go along to the next session. I'll definitely be speaking up in opposition of anything which I think would definitely fall within the public or private sector's remit. But, I'm hopeful something interesting will turn up outside of that that I can get involved in.

Sparks · 25-01-2014 2:16am

stevenmu wrote: »

I still don't think that this is quite what you are concerned that it might be, but you do have a point that it could turn into that.

And to be clear, I'm not saying that it is that, just that these things have a very high potential to go that way, especially in our little country.

Volunteerism is a way of life here (despite what you'd think, we have one of the highest rates of volunteerism in the world for local community things), it's just that we also have a very very long record of a minority of unethical types (or even well-meaning idiots) wasting large amounts of people's effort, time, money and goodwill.

If this turns out the way the credit union and coop movements did, brilliant. If it turns into jobbridge, that's not so good at all.

GetWithIt · 19-02-2014 1:10pm

Anyone going to the event on Saturday?

It does clash quite badly with the rugby. I'm taking the lack of chatter on this thread as a bad sign.

Mort5000 · 19-02-2014 1:39pm

GetWithIt wrote: »

It does clash quite badly with the rugby

I'm going to the Drink for Ireland event instead...

Zipppy · 19-02-2014 1:41pm

GetWithIt wrote: »

Anyone going to the event on Saturday?

It does clash quite badly with the rugby. I'm taking the lack of chatter on this thread as a bad sign.

Apparently there are lots registered and it's hoped to show the rubgy there on big screen

GetWithIt · 19-02-2014 1:47pm

Do you know if there is parking available within the Facebook HQ?

GetWithIt · 24-02-2014 1:17pm

I was a little disappointed with this event. There was a short window at the start for people to pitch either the existing or new ideas. I wasn't aware this would be the case. It doesn't always suit people to stand in front of a big group and "pitch".

It seemed to be a bit, here are the ideas we've decided to work on, now you do the work. I'd have liked to have seen an area where people could just just discuss problems. I didn't feel community groups were represented. The Open Data element seemed a little lost.

I fear there are some square wheels getting re-invented. People seemed either stuck discussing the problems or just wanted to develop apps.

I personally don't think the business location app has any place at the event. The 2 keys points I noted from the intro to the day were "Make a difference" and "Community participation". I don't think that app fulfils either. It looked commercially driven.

Location, facilities, organisation etc were fantastic. The people behind this have done a fantastic job to give this legs. I'm not criticising for the sake of it, just pointing out quibbles as I saw them. I do hope to go to next event.

Code for Ireland Launch Event

Comments